09e: Conclusions

1. With The Necessary Changes Having Been Made
Part of the Roman genius included knowing (at least most of the time) when to deviate from the mos maiorum. Their openness to adopting Hellenism shows the Romans at their very best. As it turned out, the Romans did not become morally weakened by exposure to Greek arts, sciences, or social customs. The Romans' close study of the Ancient Greeks' language and literature was an essential step toward developing their own literature and drama. Greek medicine was a massive improvement over its Roman counterpart, and as it turned out, even Greek philosophy had something to offer the Romans. Even the old-school Romans, like Cato the Censor, who complained about what they called aemulatio (or "slavish emulation") learned quite a bit from the Greeks.

2. Meet the New Boss
Thanks to the Sexto-Licinian laws of 367 BC, plebeians could be elected to the office of consul. Other changes which resulted from the Conflict of the Orders. The patrician class had been replaced by a "noble" class which included plebeian based families - that is, wealthy plebeian based families. The major qualifications were membership in the senatorial class and having an ancestor who had held a consulship. The road was also open to citizens not born in Rome to become part of the nobility, but in practice, only three non-Senatorial men of any note reached the consulship: Cato the Elder, Marius, and Cicero. However, even Senators from non-noble families were men of influence during the years that they held their magistracies.

3. Diversity
Once over the Conflict of the Orders, the Romans were surprisingly well committed to letting people advance socially and politically. This applied not only to the new "noble" class. The "senatorial" class was comprised of all descendants of former magistrates, but in principle restricted to those who (at least officially) stayed out of business life in order to play a role in the Senate. The "equestrian" class passed up a direct role in public life in order to focus on business interests, but could move up into the "senatorial" class. This "equestrian" class was often a stepping stone for Italian citizens and other non-Roman born citizens to move into political life. During the Principate, when this commitment to diversity was expanded to include the provinces, Rome was able to draw upon the brightest and most promising people of the entire Empire.

4. The Seeds That They Let Grow
Yet the Romans ignored certain glaring problems until they became catastrophic. Among these were the decline of the small farmer class, the refusal of full Roman citizenship to all Italian allies, and political corruption. Allowing the small farmer class to disintegrate in Rome's wars of conquest, and allowing the latifundia to push the survivors out of business was a mistake, ultimately leading to the rise of client armies. The solution would not have been simple, but the Gracchi paid with their lives for trying to find one. Refusal to allow all Italian allies to become citizens could have been fixed with the passage of a law, but it took the death of Livius Drusus, the Social War, and the war with Mithridates to teach the Romans their lesson. Finally, political corruption made a mockery of the annual elections, with its rampant bribery and other back door deals. Optimates jockeyed with populares and populares jockeyed with optimates, when each was just basically a somewhat different side of the same sad coin. Whoever had the most money and the most clients usually won, which did not bode well for actual democracy. As one of Rome's old enemies observed, Rome was a city for sale.